司法改革与结构性危机再生产——从药家鑫案的审理谈起

现代司法是现代政治合法性再生产的制度装置,而其之所以能做到这一点,就在于其具有保守、克制,有意与社会保持适当隔离,严格按照正当程序操作,严格依法断案的品质。西安中院在审理药家鑫案时征求旁听人员关于量刑的意见,受到了网友的广泛质疑,引发了司法的合法性危机,就是因其背离了现代司法的范型,以致引火烧身。避免司法改革举措失当导致结构性的危机再生产是我们在整个司法改革过程中始终面临的课题。     

回归民事诉讼法——法院依职权调查取证的再改革

民事诉讼法授权法院依职权收集审理案件所需要的证据,为法院依职权调查取证留下了较大的空间。在民事司法改革过程中,这一权力被极度缩小,使得我国法院依职权收集证据的权力明显小于德国、法国等大陆法系国家。通过发现真实达致实体公正是包括我国在内的各国民事诉讼制度的根本目的,过分限缩法院依职权调查取证的权力妨碍了实体公正的实现,已经产生了多方面的负面效应。因此需要对以往的改革进行检讨,并通过适当扩大法院依职权调查收集证据的权力,在民事诉讼中建立科学的案件事实发现机制。     

European security policy for the people? Public opinion and the EU's Common Foreign,Security and Defence policy

The democratic foundations of European integration in the foreign and defence realm are increasingly being debated. This article looks at the question of democratic legitimacy from one particular angle, by examining public opinion as measured in Eurobarometer surveys between 1989 and 2009. Based on reflections about the relation between polling results and wider questions of democracy, it examines three aspects of public opinion: general support for a common foreign and a common defence policy; differences among support rates in EU member states; and what roles Europeans would prefer for European armed forces. It turns out that general support for a common foreign policy is high, whereas the desirability of a common defence policy is much more contested. Moreover, citizens across Europe would prefer European armed forces to take on traditional tasks, as territorial defence. An EU defence policy that goes beyond strict intergovernmentalism and is directed towards protecting international law and universal human rights would thus require a significant communicative effort to become accepted.     

我国警察执法权力与权威失衡原因探析

警察权是国家权力的重要组成;警察职权在现代法治社会中扮演着举足轻重的角色。现实中,我国警察执法权力与权威失衡的现象日益凸显,其原因是多层次、多方面的。对其原因进行不同层次的探究是更为有效应对此种现象的必要前提。刑事立法上要扩大正当防卫权的范围与设立袭警罪;行政法规立法方面的完善是应对我国警察遇害比率过高问题的法律出路;警察执法现状反映出警察执法能力方面的不足;各种社会思潮也在推波助澜。     

Democracy in crisis? The declining support for national democracy in European countries, 2007–2011

The Great Recession that started in 2007/2008 has been the worst economic downturn since the crisis of the 1930s in Europe. It led to a major sovereign debt crisis, which is arguably the biggest challenge for the European Union (EU) and its common currency. Not since the 1950s have advanced democracies experienced such a dramatic external imposition of austerity and structural reform policies through inter‐ or supranational organisations such as the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or as implicitly requested by international financial markets. Did this massive interference with the room for maneuver of parliaments and governments in many countries erode support for national democracy in the crisis since 2007? Did citizens realise that their national democratic institutions were no longer able to effectively decide on major economic and social policies, on economic and welfare state institutions? And did they react by concluding that this constrained democracy no longer merited further support? These are the questions guiding this article, which compares 26 EU countries in 2007–2011 and re‐analyses 78 national surveys. Aggregate data from these surveys is analysed in a time‐series cross‐section design to examine changes in democratic support at the country level. The hypotheses also are tested at the individual level by estimating a series of cross‐classified multilevel logistic regression models. Support for national democracy – operationalised as satisfaction with the way democracy works and as trust in parliament – declined dramatically during the crisis. This was caused both by international organisations and markets interfering with national democratic procedures and by the deteriorating situation of the national economy as perceived by individual citizens.     

The Istituto Affari Internazionali's annual report: Activities in 1987

The revelations from the former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, in July 2013 will have an enduring impact on the modern business of intelligence and the communication strategies of governments and non-state based adversaries alike. Snowden’s revelations do not mark a fundamental divergence from the general understanding of intelligence. In making these implied understandings public, however, Snowden has changed the political dynamic around mass surveillance. The revelations amplify a tension within several layers of social contract from interactions between governments to those between governments and citizens. Long-term, diplomatic relations between the US and European governments should remain largely unaffected.     

Exploring the impact of mass cultural changes on the patterns of democratic reform

In this article, a typology of reforms most suitable for Western democracies is built using two dimensions. These are the aggregative–integrative dimension and the indirect–direct dimension. Using a data set of reforms, consisting of 21 democracies, reforms in the last two decades are categorized as either pendulum, consensus, voter or participatory reforms. In the second part of this article, it is explored whether patterns of reforms follow mass-level cultural changes in four egalitarian societies. Following grid-group cultural typologies some of the patterns of democratic change anticipated are: that pendulum reforms are accompanied by changes towards a more atomistic culture, consensus reforms are associated with hierarchical societies, voter reforms are guided by accelerated individualism, and finally, that participatory reforms match increasingly egalitarian societies. This article concludes that these expectations have not been met. Elites are trying to restore the slump of the hierarchical culture and with it the consensus democratic model despite the resulting mismatch with mass cultures.     

Normes,débat et délibération dans la démocratie parlementaire : Max Weber et Jürgen Habermas

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the significance of the norm in the conceptions of Max Weber, sociologist and author of the classical work Economy and Society, and of Jürgen Habermas, philosopher and sociologist of the Frankfurt School. Both authors have in fact dedicated specific studies to the sociology of right and have conferred a central function on the norms in order to guarantee a correct functioning of parliamentary democracy. For Weber and Habermas, the norm exists in a constitutive tension between facticity and normativity, i.e. between its factual influence on society and its theoretical legitimacy. Weber distinguishes between the juridicial and the sociological meaning of the norm, which is respectively related to its normative value and to its effects on society. For Habermas, the norm is adhered to, but it also has to be legitimized, and this can only be reached as a consequence of a democratic debate that produces consensus. In the political sphere, Weber and Habermas stress the importance of an interaction between legality and political discussion, democratic procedures and their process of institutionalization, thus emphasizing the necessity of guaranteeing a political debate subject to rules. Nevertheless, their ideas of democracy partially differ. Weber conceives of a democracy based on a majority, whereas Habermas stresses the necessity of reaching an agreement. This article analyzes the different models of democracy articulated by Weber and Habermas, their significance, and the possibility of integration between them.     

Shaping Citizen Perceptions of Police Legitimacy: A Randomized Field Trial of Procedural Justice

Exploring the relationship between procedural justice and citizen perceptions of police is a well‐trodden pathway. Studies show that when citizens perceive the police acting in a procedurally just manner—by treating people with dignity and respect, and by being fair and neutral in their actions—they view the police as legitimate and are more likely to comply with directives and cooperate with police. Our article examines both the direct and the indirect outcomes of procedural justice policing, tested under randomized field trial conditions. We assess whether police can enhance perceptions of legitimacy during a short, police‐initiated and procedurally just traffic encounter and how this single encounter shapes general views of police. Our results show significant differences between the control and experimental conditions: Procedurally just traffic encounters with police (experimental condition) shape citizen views about the actual encounter directly and general orientations toward the police relative to business‐as‐usual traffic stops in the control group. The theorized model is supported by our research, demonstrating that the police have much to gain from acting fairly during even short encounters with citizens.     

‘The biggest gang in Oakland’: re-thinking police legitimacy

Literature defining ‘police legitimacy’ lacks qualitative research on those populations most often targeted by law enforcement agencies, including people of color in urban areas. This same literature defines police legitimacy as something unquestionable and automatic. Exploration of this concept is limited to strategies to increase public ‘trust’ in police, and public compliance to their authority. We address these limitations in the available scholarship through an analysis of interviews with a diverse sample of Oakland (CA) residents on their experiences with the Oakland Police Department (OPD). Their narratives are presented in the historical context of controversy, budget problems, federal investigations, and racialized violence that help to define the relationship between OPD and Oakland communities. Those interviewed, universally observed OPD’s failure to address the most common crime problems in the city, while others, particularly people of color, found them to be a personal or public threat to safety. Their narratives fly in the face of the manifest functions of municipal police forces, are fully supported by the contemporary empirical history of the OPD, and suggest the illegitimate authority – including the monopoly on the use of force – of organizations like OPD in a democratic society.